3 Reason’s why agile marketing isn’t a fad!

Agile marketing is an iterative and adaptive process. Agile lends itself to driving innovative solutions, a more innovative culture and better results. 

Whilst it requires the ability to be fast to act and quick to respond, this does not define the theory of agile. Being quick to respond simply means teams are still reactive but are very efficient at being reactive. 

Here’s why Agile is more than being fast to act. 

1. The customer is at the core. 

The concept of Agile Marketing brings a focus on identifying needs and pain points of consumer markets. The ability to empathise with consumers and adapt to their changing needs forms the foundations of competitive advantage. 

2. Aligning with overarching goals. 

Successful marketing not only requires an intimate understanding of who you serve but it also requires a close alignment to your organisations long term vision and the overarching business goals. One of the greatest strengths in agile marketing is the involvement of small cross functional teams which is proven to improve any campaigns success rate. Cross functional teams can identify potential inefficiencies earlier as more critical insights are presented before campaigns go live. It also empowers marketers and gives them access to different points of view that may have never been considered. 

3. Driving an innovative culture. 

The methodology behind Agile Marketing increases communication and transparency within an organisation by breaking down silos and empowering employees to offer new ideas. The fear of failure is removed as to fail fast is a natural step in the build-measure-learn loop. As part of the loop Agile also relies on testing, rapid iterations and small releases as opposed to large drawn out campaigns. In order to iterate it also forces teams to be more data-driven to learn and guide their efforts. 

In 2012, a group of forward-thinking marketers put their heads together to come up with the marketing version of the Agile Manifesto. (Agile applies key principles from agile software development.) 

According to the manifesto, Agile marketers value:

1. Validated learning over opinions and conventions

2. Customer-focused collaboration over silos and hierarchy

3. Adaptive and iterative campaigns over Big Bang campaigns

4. The process of customer discovery over static prediction

5. Flexible vs. rigid planning

6. Responding to change over following a plan

7. Many small experiments over a few large bets

Agile Marketing will become more and more important to teams and organisations. It’s a new way of working that is proven and used by the most innovative companies in the world. Agile is simply a representation of how we need to adapt and rise to the challenge of a fast-moving world and rapidly changing needs and channels. Agile allows us to do this by ensuring our analysis of the customer is never complete. 

It’s inherently a dedication to making peoples lives better by matching their needs with our products and services. 

If you enjoyed this leave me a comment. I’d love to hear what you think!